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Photo buffs, grab your smartphones: The era of iPhone fine art has arrived. In Los Angeles this month, the LA Mobile Arts Festival features the works of more than 200 smartphone-wielding enthusiasts from around the world. It's the cream of the crop from iPhoneArt.com, where 5,000 people publish their creations.

One red-hot category at the show has been Olloclip art—photos taken with a popular iPhone clip-on lens that produces both 180-degree wide-angle shots and super-close-up macro shots. A winning Olloclip photo, Well, Hello! Fancy Meeting You Here, by Ginger Lucero of Albuquerque, N.M., appears below. (At iPhoneArt.com, Lucero goes by the name Sxethang.)

iPhoneArt.com

Price: Site is free. Olloclip, popular clip-on lens, is $69.99 Features: The site lets enthusiasts display their work and swap tips. Websites:iphoneart.com, olloclip.com

Against all odds, the photo world is embracing iPhoneography, as it's called. Though cellphone optics are vastly inferior to pro gear, some of the very best photographers are jumping in. Asked what camera to get, Annie Leibovitz told NBC's Brian Williams that the iPhone "is the snapshot camera of today. I'm still learning how to use mine." Introducing his iLibya: Uprising by iPhone series, war photographer Ben Lowy wrote on his blog, "It was a liberating experience: to point and shoot with a small device, unhampered by camera bags full of gear and reacting to the world around me." New York gallery owner James Danzinger says he has become "a huge fan" of Instagram, the photo-sharing app and social network.

If you want in on the action, there are loads of apps to help. Hueless is the best for shooting iPhone photos in black and white. The iPhoneArt community favors heavy filters such as FX Photo Studio and the astonishing TiltShift Generator, which simulates a selective-focus feature of old-style large-format cameras. It'll make you look like you just lugged your glass plates out of Yosemite with a train of donkeys.

NATHANIEL WICE is a tech entrepreneur and free-lance writer based in New York.